Mozambique tightens rules on entry of foreigners and reinforces criteria for expulsion – @Verdade

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Mozambique tightens rules on entry of foreigners and reinforces criteria for expulsion – @Verdade

1:27 CAT | 27 Oct 2022

FILE - For illustration purposes only. Today, the Mozambican p parliament today approved the revision of the law establishing the Legal Regime for Foreign Citizens. [File photo: A Verdade]

Although tourist, investment and business visas have been made more flexible, it will become more difficult for foreign citizens to enter Mozambique, particularly minors and those with no visible means of subsistence. At the same time, more responsibilities have been imposed on carriers, and the reasons for administrative expulsion have been reinforced.

The approval, in general and by consensus of the Frelimo, Renamo and MDM parliamentary benches in the Assembly of the Republic, this Thursday (27-10) of the revision of the law establishing the Legal Regime for Foreign Citizens brings several changes.

Under the new law, it will be more difficult for minors who are not accompanied by their parents to enter the country and, if accompanied by only one of the parents, it is now “required to present the authorization, with notary recognition, expressing the consent of the other parent”.

The government has also increased the requirements concerning the necessary means of subsistence for foreigners who intend to enter Mozambique, demanding that they bear “the expenses of food, accommodation and others that are deemed necessary during the period of their stay in the national territory, as well as that they are able to bear the return trip to the country of origin”.

More responsibilities are imposed on companies transporting foreigners to Mozambique, which are “obliged to guarantee their return, in the shortest possible time, to the point where they started using the means of transport”, and “until the re-embarkation takes place, the carriers are subject to the [obligation of] payment of food and assistance expenses [of the passenger] that are deemed necessary” and are responsible for the “expenses related to the repatriation of the foreign citizen”. Carriers are also “obliged to transmit to the Migration Services, up until the end of the boarding register, any information relating to passengers of foreign nationality they are carrying”.

@Verdade has learned that the new law determines that entry into Mozambique can also be refused to any foreign citizen who “is on the list of prohibited entry” or “constitutes a danger or serious threat to public order, to national security, to public health or to international relations, under the terms of the Foreign Policy of the Republic of Mozambique”.

In addition, the government is now able to expel any foreign citizen who, being “the holder of a work visa, establishes a [contractual] link with another employer different from the one that hired them”, or “has been sanctioned with a fine and has not made the payment within the established period”.

Any foreign citizen “who does not comply with the notification of voluntary departure” or who “has been sentenced to an accessory penalty of expulsion and irregularly re-entered” Mozambique can also be expelled.

By Adérito Caldeira

Source: A Verdade